


woke up new

by psychosomatic86



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Adventuring, Alternate Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shadow of Israphel, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-05 17:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17329553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychosomatic86/pseuds/psychosomatic86
Summary: They both know this is a lie, but they let the fact alone for their own peace of mind. It doesn’t help to delve so deeply into the morality of their bastardized mortality, not together at least. One of them has to stay sane to pull the other out. That’s just how it is.





	woke up new

Regeneration has its benefits, certainly. For one thing: immortality. Despite the general shit they’ve endured these past months tracking the specter of the sands, battling his cronies, discovering horror upon horror... at the very least, death doesn’t loom quite so permanent a threat.

 

Regeneration has its drawbacks, too. For one thing: agony, bone rending splinters sloughing back together to reanimate their unassuming consciousness floated free of their corpses, the unutterable grotesqueness of feeling oneself sutured, pulse for pulse, vein for vein, viscera and synapses and nails and that first, guttural inhale. And then the shock when, immediately, it is gone, gone from the new body, only ghost pangs to prove it was there at all.

 

Xephos has never acclimated to it, supposes he never will. Honeydew never confides if he is similarly afflicted, brags about his dwarven strength, so Xephos secrets his torments away and saves face as best he can. After a while, though, after the mishaps and missteps of their first months of friendship, they exercise greater care, winding their death toll down from several times a week, to once every few.

 

And then Israphel. And then the ceaseless pursuit as saviors of the world entire. And then death again so many, _many_ times. And then agony.

 

They make light of their first encounter with the new pale menace, after they have regenerated, after they find words from the wicked rasps of their pale new vocal chords. They pat each other’s shoulders, call it good game and all that, that they’ll get the bugger next time.

 

Next time turns to dozens turns to near several times as many fruitless attempts to ferret out and foil the demon. Each time, they die, the creativity of demise depending on where they’ve cornered Israphel, what tricks he has to his disposal, what mood fate is in. Magic is quick, decapitation an intimate favorite, sometimes they simply… fall. None of it ever compares to the horror of returning.

 

Today, they die a collective six times, four of which Xephos can triumph his own. They track Israphel into a labyrinth of neither his nor their design where rocks plummet, chasms yawn, swords clash, arrows fly, and finally magic fells the structure entire and crushes them. By the time they suffer the privilege of another life, Israphel is gone.

 

When bearing finds them, they clamber from the ruins and set up camp a few yards from the shattered entry of the maze, keeping its last standing monoliths to their backs for safety, watching the forest in front of them turn vaguely silhouetted in the late hour. As the sun limps toward the horizon, and a light breeze stirs the burning scent of limestone and blood, they huddle around a meager fire, too sober to talk, and eating is out of the question. They lost most of their provisions in the avalanche, anyway.

 

“I’ll keep first watch,” Xephos eventually says, gathering his arms full of branches from their tinder pile and setting about wrapping their ends in swaths of torn cloth he salvaged from his last corpse. He is methodically unthinking of the wet and crust and stinging scent that soaks the remnants of his jacket, his shirt.

 

“You sure?” Says Honeydew. He makes no move to assist the task, a pretense for which Xephos is immensely grateful.

 

“Yeah. Get some sleep friend. Long one tomorrow, see if there’s a village around maybe.”

 

“Okay, well,” Honeydew rests a strong, broad hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “Don’t lemme sleep too long, eh? Get you some shut eye, too.”

 

“Sure, friend,” Xephos says, savoring the solidity of his friend’s touch, and knowing full well sleep will never find him tonight. Rarely does it when he’s just died. He wonders how Honeydew manages.

 

-

 

Despite his diligence with the torches, the pitch of night still endeavors to engulf Xephos as he stands his guard, sits occasionally, gets back up and resumes pacing when his joints seize with exhaustion. It’s a new body, certainly, but sustains all the woe and wear he has endured this past year, his unmarred skin and bones a crushing vice of remembered physicalities he can’t shake.

 

He shivers, instead, folding and unfolding his arms against the chill of dew, the calls of strange things off in the forest. Their campsite is mostly well cloistered away amidst the rocks, not exactly a lean-to or cave, proper, but it’s decent, and it inspires another ache deep in his chest.

 

He misses their first home, carved out and burnt and shoddy and perfect for the both of them. He misses the sea and the snow and the excitement of his new friend, the thrill upon discovering the strange scapes of the land, the relief when his friend did not die in that pyramid. The breathless wonderment when they first learned they couldn’t seem to at all. And now they have learned they will not, to an end Xephos can’t conceive of, with a determination Honeydew seems blindly to persevere. Xephos wants to know how he does it, how he picks through the pieces of his flesh and bone and carries on. Why can’t he. Why can’t they -

 

A twig, snapped, cracks the nervous balm of the night, like so many fingers he’s splintered, fingers that curl, now and immediate, round the hilt of his sword, unsheathing it to throw blue off the hues of the firelight. He makes no move to waken Honeydew, but it was too precise a sound to mistake for doubt, and he’s not keen on dying a fifth time in as many hours.

 

He stalks the fire’s perimeter, eyes slowly adjusting as he ventures further from its warm glow, until he is met with a wall of looming dark trees, spindling out where branches pronounce themselves from the mass of their trunks. After some seconds of rapid blinking, he can make those out, as well, the thick foliage dark navy where full black fills the spaces between. He scours these, his pulse sprinting through his throat, his wrists, at the backs of his knees. Raising his sword, he can see the white of his knuckles. It’s the only indication he’s holding much of anything, the blue of his blade mostly lost. His ears strain to hear, but even the crickets have quieted. There is something hideously poised about this all. Waiting.

 

And then -

 

_Snap!_

 

Seized by instinct, Xephos swings and stabs in a frenzy of quick, practiced defense. Instantly, his blade connects and a shout rings out and he aims again, but this time he misses, and something strikes his temple, hard. He staggers back, his vision swarming with flashes of black and white bursts, and his assailant lunges in pursuit. It’s a terrible mistake. Just as they leap into the firelight and Xephos can see the vicious intent in their wild eyes, the mallet in their hand, the rage of their teeth revealed in a bellowing snarl, he hefts his sword up, braces the hilt against his pelvis, and like that, it’s over, his attacker finished off by their own weight. The force of it jams the hilt hard into his abdomen, and something hot and dull and agonizing blooms out, but Xephos can’t afford to pay it mind. He takes a step back, wrenches his blade free and lets the figure impaled on it slump forward before he drives the sword back down, through their neck. A spurt of blood gushes up and flows steadily as Xephos twists his weapon free, and then he, too, collapses, falls to his hands and knees as his veins fill to the brim with aftershock and terror, like a chase of icy water to accompany the bold shot of adrenaline.

 

“Xeph? Holy - holy shit, Xeph?!”

 

There seems to be no space between his friend’s exclamation and the steady, steady hands that grab his shoulders. Honeydew grips so much harder than before, though, than just a few hours ago when they were settling in for the night; he can’t make sense of why that is.

 

“Holy fucking - Xeph are you okay? Can ye hear me?”

 

He wants to say something, nod, groan, anything that will reassure his friend, but everything is spinning and vaulting, jerking his vision left and right at impossible velocities. He’s far too warm, his body burning up, his head and gut aflame, and it’s too much too much _too much_.

 

“Xeph!”

 

It’s the last thing he hears before he lurches violently forward, tumbling tumbling tumbling into a black well of blessed unconsciousness.

 

-

 

He wakes up pressed to something warm and solid, arms around him. A gentle, rhythmic swaying. Dappled light.

 

He wakes up prone on something soft, no arms, no movement. Filtered light, low and blue.

 

He wakes up, still prone, still motionless, and this time, stays awake. The light is low through his eyelids, either early morning or late afternoon, but he doesn’t open them just yet, it’s far too great an effort. He settles on a pitiful groan, instead, his abdomen suffused with a dull ache, his head pounding.

 

“Xeph? Xeph - ah jeez - can y’hear me, pal?”

 

Oh god, Honeydew.

 

His eyes snap open of their own accord, and the world before him takes on even less sense, his direct line of sight wobbling, his periphery pulsing, so all he can discern are vague shapes of white and tan and blue.

 

He groans again, shuts his eyes, and lifts a shaking hand to massage his throbbing head only to find it thickly bandaged. An assessment of the rest of himself reveals similar bindings around his stomach.

 

“Dew…” he says weakly, and promptly feels his friend’s presence beside him.

 

“M’here, Xeph,” Honeydew says, taking the hand Xephos had rested on his forehead and holding it between his own. Sturdy, steady, calloused and safe. “S’all fine.”

 

He wants to open his eyes, see his friend, confirm for himself what Honeydew claims with a tone too close to unsure.

 

Instead he asks, “Where’re we?” and swallows a whimper as something slices up from his gut to his ribs.

 

“Some - some village’r other,” he says, a bit too hurriedly for Xephos to follow tangentially. “Uh - Fernstead I think. Haven’t - haven’t done much minglin’ with the locals - uh… yer… are ye feelin’ alright? S’been, uh - do you remember what happened at all?”

 

A long stretch of silence filters in as Xephos plumbs the sore reaches of his memory, Honeydew contenting himself to nervously traversing his thumb over the knuckles of Xephos’s hand.

 

The labyrinth? Yes. Dying? Of course. Setting up camp? Fuzzy, but there. But after that… it’s a blur of black and pain and fear. Permeating fear.

 

“S’okay, Xeph,” Honeydew interrupts, and Xephos follows his voice away from the agony of his fractured brain, enough to crack his eyes open. He’s met with the uncertain image of his best friend, exhaustion and relief warring for dominance in his expression.

 

“Wa’n’t nothing but some lone actin’ bandit,” he explains further. “So’s the local folks say or somethin’. We’re safe now, and, look, got ye up nice’n proper at a doctor’s, see?”

 

Now that he can without the threat of blacking out, Xephos does, in fact, see where he is, sees he’s lain in a proper bed (a luxury he’s not had for some time), covered by a thin but thoroughly starched white sheet. Beyond and beside his bed are stationed several others, though all of them are empty. There’s a window to his left, its shutters open, its clinical curtains pulled back to reveal blue-green sunlight. So it’s early morning, then.

 

“How… how long?” He croaks out, and Honeydew holds his hand tighter.

 

“Two days pal. Y’been out cold, mostly. Doc says it’s a concussion, an’ she’s workin’ out what t’do about - bout the rest’a it but… you’ll be fine. Bed rest an’ decent food and we’ll be back on our way.”

 

Xephos wants to ask his friend what hurts worse, lying like that or the smile he puts on to try and hide the fact they both know what’s going to happen. Because it’s happened before. One of them gets gravely ill or injured and it becomes a waiting game until they can die and come back. So many times they’ve cracked wise at getting the job done faster, the harrowing ease of suicide made palatable by their elbow nudges and wry chuckles. Why should this be any different?

 

He makes a half hearted stab at it.

 

“Could have this one in the ground in an hour if you’re so keen to get on,” he says, harsher than he means to sound. Or maybe he does.

 

Honeydew’s smile falters to a grim line and he takes a step back from the bedside, letting go Xephos’s hand.

 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he says.

 

“And you,” Xephos says as he leverages himself into a sitting position, because, hell, he’s started now, so why pretend otherwise, “know full bloody well I’m not getting out of this the way you want.”

 

“Th’ way I want?” Honeydew says. “Y’think I like ye kicking the bucket every time y’get a chest cold?”

 

“Ah, is that what this is,” Xephos says bitterly, indicating his bandaged abdomen.

 

“Don’t get short with me, pal, I’m just tryin’ t’help.”

 

Xephos grits his teeth against the retort building up his throat, knows he doesn’t mean any of this against his friend; he’s sad and tired and frustrated and scared and, bloody hell he doesn’t want to die again so soon. And he wants to say as much, but he’s dug his grave in this conversation, and his vindictive pettiness threatens to win out. His body, however, is not so compliant, and the stricture in his throat gains footing, creeping up and up to push behind his eyes, urging unwanted tears that scald his cheeks as they fall without so much as a request for permission.

 

“Aw geez, Xeph,” says Honeydew, his voice downtrodden, his posture unwinding from a strained defense to hapless exhaustion.

 

Carefully, he approaches the bed, and Xephos hasn’t the energy to refuse his embrace. It hurts, both his pride and his wounds, but he weathers it for the soothing hushes Honeydew murmurs into his hair. Slowly but steadily, he cries himself out, and steadily, slowly, Honeydew calms him, rubs his shoulders until they stop shuddering, wipes his cheeks with a corner of the blanket when he pulls away for a proper gasp of air.

 

“M’sorry,” he whimpers, burying his face back into Honeydew’s beard.

 

“Nothin’ t’be sorry ‘bout,” sighs Honeydew.

 

They both know this is a lie, but they let the fact alone for their own peace of mind. It doesn’t help to delve so deeply into the morality of their bastardized mortality, not together at least. One of them has to stay sane to pull the other out. That’s just how it is.

 

Eventually, Xephos finds the composure to mumble, “M’gonna sleep some more,” if only to convince Honeydew he’s on the mend.

 

His friend relaxes into the last of their embrace, and a fresh wave of sorrow burdens the back of Xephos’s throat. That he causes the only person he cares so deeply about so much pain… He’s never hated himself more than these moments.

 

“Alrighty, pal,” Honeydew says, oblivious. “Might pop down the chemist and see about that order th’doc put in, yeah? Might be ready. Rejuvenation elixir or summat she said.”

 

“I think she’d prefer to administer it,” Xephos says with a wan smile. “But sure, friend, and why don’t you see if there’s somewhere for drinks.”

 

As Honeydew pulls away, he waggles his eyebrows.

 

“Thirsty, eh?”

 

Xephos swats his arm.

 

“I mean for you.”

 

“Sure sure,” Honeydew chuckles. “Guess a dwarf’s gotta take care’a himself, too, eh?”

 

Xephos offers a weak smile, and Honeydew rocks on his heels.

 

“Well,” he says, “I won’t be too long either ways. You hungry at all? Inn nearby I been stayin’ at cuz the meals here issa bit shit, an we’ve just had ye on stew much as we could get y’awake fer it.”

 

Empty as Xephos’s stomach feels, it’s far from devoid of pain, and even the idea of an appetite nauseates him.

 

“I’m alright,” he says, and sets about gingerly settling himself back into a lying down position.

 

He’s only just able to stifle every wince that makes a break for his put on smile, a task Honeydew’s own visage fails to accomplish, his brows pinching with worry.

 

“It’s fine, friend,” Xephos reassures. “Go on and relax a bit, can’t imagine it’s been fun sat here for two days.”

 

“Arse’s s’bit sore, yeah,” Honeydew mumbles, cracking a cheeky grin.

 

It’s both a relief and a conundrum to Xephos how easily concerns become an afterthought in the ever simple mind of his friend. Right now, though, he’s grateful for it.

 

“Aw’right, well,” Honeydew jerks a thumb to his left. “I’ll get and you get sleepin’. Best medicine and all that.”

 

“Certainly,” Xephos says, and settles into his pillow, shutting his eyes again, and waiting.

 

There’s a stall, a second of expectation, and then, at last, the departure of his friend’s presence on quiet, sure footfalls. A creak and squeal of hinges, the click of a latch, and Xephos is alone.

 

He opens his eyes, and the tears come swift, merciless, a silent path down his cheeks, dripping from his chin and pooling in the hollow between his collarbones. It’s this that alerts him to the fact he’s wearing neither his jacket nor shirt, only his trousers and the bandages about his waist, and though it’s a discordant detail, he rather fixates on it as he looks about as much as he can afford to move, searching for his clothing. He needn’t look far, both items folded neatly and stowed away under the chair stationed beside his bed, presumably where Honeydew has been sat for most of his waiting. Striped blue and white atop the red and gold and black of his jacket, the colors pristine, the seams crisp and new, so very, very new. He can’t look for much longer, the implication turning his stomach more sour by the second, so he subsides to the down of his pillow, watching the beams of the wooden roof overhead blur as he neglects to blink away his tears.

 

An unidentifiable length of time lapses in which he struggles to think as little as possible, but the fragilities of his physical woes insist - and well manage - on burdening him with their torments. His efforts to soothe the pulsating heat from his naval to sternum do very little altogether, and in fact worsen when he presses too hard under his ribs in an attempt to stymie a shifting lance of pain. He holds his breath against the resulting wave of razor hot agony, shivering all over with the effort it takes not to cry out, and the white _sharps_ through his mind take on decidedly sinister solutions to it all. Just like he’d said before, after all, finish it off so he can start afresh. Why wait for a bloody chemist? Why wait through this? If he can get to the window and they’re high enough up. Or there must be surgical tools about. Blankets for a noose. Such faster, faster ways than _this_ , and they can secret the old body away so no one here has to know and go asking questions. Surely they’d be confused by his sudden disappearance. Or maybe just leave the body? Sneak out and leave his old corpse, yeah. Easy enough, that. No questions to field, then.

 

It’s far too late when he catches up to his whirlwind thoughts and realizes nowhere in the latter plot did he conceive of himself and Honeydew scheming this out together. Nowhere did he see himself and Honeydew abandoning his corpse together, making haste _together_ from the village and onward to the rest of their quest.

 

It’s too much. With the last of his strength, he’s just able to roll to his left and dry heave over the side of the bed, bile and the remnants of some thin, watery stew dribbling onto the floorboards below. Every nerve from toe to tip sings alive in spasms of flaring pain, his heartbeat hammers through his ears, there’s a taste of copper and bits of red.

 

“Notch, above,” gasps an unfamiliar voice.

 

“Xeph!” Cries a familiar voice.

 

“Get him on his back, now,” says the unfamiliar voice.

 

“Doc, he’s -” stammers the familiar voice.

 

“Now!” Commands the unfamiliar voice.

 

Familiar hands with familiar gentleness guide him back as familiar sounds of choked sobs murmur half coherent apologies. But it doesn't sound as sad as it should, that familiar voice, his friend’s voice, Honeydew’s voice. It just doesn’t.

 

-

 

“Am I better.”

 

He doesn’t need an answer, so doesn’t phrase a question, merely says it to announce his waking up for the millionth time. He knows he’s better by whatever standards of the administered medicine, his body no longer wracked with pain, his vision fully stable as he stares dead on to the foot of the bed. His periphery spies Honeydew sat in the chair, hands clasped, head burdened at a remorseful angle until the dwarf looks gratefully up at him.

 

“Yeah,” he croaks, clears his throat, tries again. “Yeah, Xeph. Yer better.”

 

“Internal bleeding,” Xephos remarks, recalling the polluted vomit.

 

“Yeah,” says Honeydew, diminutive as if it were entirely his fault. “Concussion weren’t helpin’ neither,” he continues, “worse’n we thought, but it’s - it’s over.

 

“S’over now, pal.”

 

Like there’s any lasting effect to that sentiment.

 

Xephos swallows down the itch to scoff and instead considers where to take them from here. Perhaps he should tell Honeydew what had set him off before. Perhaps he should think it again and succumb to another frenzy such that they’ll have no choice in it. That Honeydew tries so hard to make there _be_ one, tried so hard this time and succeeded, dammit, and at the cost of so much precious time and resources. He should have died. They both know this.

 

“How long this time?” He says, trembling with the effort it takes to keep his voice from the same fate.

 

“Eh?”

 

Xephos turns on his side and stares at his friend.  

 

“How long was I out. Another two days?”

 

Honeydew blinks at him.

 

“Rest’a… rest’a yesterday,” he says at length. “Had some Valerian in that mendin’ potion, I think.”

 

“Well, guess we’re good then, yeah?” Xephos says, and puts on a blatantly enthused air as he tosses aside his blankets, then his legs over the side of the bed, and stands fast enough to pepper his vision with black fuzz.

 

“I - what?” Honeydew gazes up at him, his brow furrowing deeply. “You were just out cold for three days straight, mate. Ye can’t expect us to get up and on our way already?”

 

“I can and do,” Xephos says through a tightening smile. “Wasted enough bloody time here, already.

 

“Wasted enough on _me_ ,” he adds under his breath, but makes the mistake of muttering it while crouching to retrieve his clothes from under Honeydew’s chair, so his friend hears it all.

 

“Now wait a damn - Xeph, we ain’t wasted nothin’, th’hell’re you on about?”

 

Honeydew jumps from his seat and pulls himself to his full height, which is comparatively little when Xephos straightens, too, his clothing procured. He attempts an innocent veneer but swiftly abandons it for irritated indifference, too tired to hide just now.

 

Hardly shy of snarling, he spits out, “I’m _on_ about us choosing to dilly dally away here for an age when we could’ve solved the problem like _that_. And now it’s going to take weeks, probably, to find Israphel again, and here you are thinking it’s fine and dandy letting me _sleep_ for _three damn days._ "

 

He pauses to suck in an infuriated breath.

 

Honeydew doesn’t even deign to hesitate.

 

“I wasn’t gonna let ye die,” he says.

 

“Why not,” says Xephos, not so much sparing a care for a response as he is merely humoring it. He’s rather more preoccupied removing his bandages, anyway, and donning his shirt in a huff.

 

Beating out its nonexistent wrinkles, her performs every fastidious tedium to keep from having to engage Honeydew again. Unfortunately, his friend is notoriously patient at these rows, as steadfast as a boulder amidst the ocean’s throes.

 

“Cuz even if we can’t,” Honeydew says on a lost, small whisper. “Even if we can’t - can’t die, I’m still gonna try an’ save ye when I can, Xeph.”

 

Xephos freezes without meaning to, his arm halfway down the sleeve of his jacket, his gaze latched to his feet.

 

Honeydew continues, “Yer all I got s’worth anything in this - this crazy shit world anymore, only one I got left so… so lemme hang on for something, huh? For you?"

 

A last blow to Xephos’s resolve.

 

“And - and maybe you do the same.”

 

He doesn’t want to cry again. He doesn’t want Honeydew to see how this crushes him, how he withers day by day with the curse of their blessing. He’s allowed too much already, unseamed the cracks begun in his new self, peeled back the rents and rends that never suture over no matter how many times he unravels and whose puppeteering threads bind his narrative from head to tail. From start to start to start to start…

 

He doesn’t cry. He lets Honeydew watch as he sits on the edge of his bed, lets his shoulders sink, his posture unwind to an attempt at penance, apology, invitation to his friend, the only one who understands, and who readily clambers up beside him and seizes him in a fierce, fierce hug.

 

“Sure, friend,” Xephos murmurs into his friend’s shoulder. “Sure, we’ll hang in there.”

 

-

 

They depart the town of Fernstead the following day, restocked of traveling provisions and a map detailing the foreign lands. To the northwest, a range of mountains sits semi-circumferential the continent, a landmark Honeydew vaguely recalls from the worn etchings in one of Israphel’s myriad temples they’ve ransacked. So they plot a course and head out, ensuring they’ve routed detours to three other towns dotted on the map before they reach the foothills, proper. If all goes well, they should reach each one within four or five days of the other, and they’ve roughed it for far longer in less hospitable climes and terrains, so this should be a breeze.

 

Renewed of vim and vigor, they head out, making decent headway before setting up camp for the night. The next day is similarly nondescript save the general wear and tear and tiresome aches of walking thirty miles a day, but come nightfall, the weather turncoats and tries its hand at a veritable monsoon. It persists into the next day, in fact worsening by early afternoon, and amidst the torrential grey and brown and cracks of lightning, they fail to discern the true treachery of their surroundings. Slipping, stumbling, they try desperately to find their way to safety through the forest, its trees thrashing and groaning, their trail long since lost. At last a shout rings out through the roar of the deluge, Honeydew having spied something with his keener eyesight, and he drags Xephos blindly along, tearing through the soaked, spiny underbrush until the uneven ground slopes upward and Xephos sees what his friend located: a small, cloistered cave, its mouth obscured by vines and moss tangling wildly in the wind.

 

“Up here!” Honeydew shouts.

 

“Right!” Xephos shouts back, and gives his friend an encouraging shove, indicating he go first.

 

He follows suit, grabbing any and every slimy rock and root he can find for a foothold, and then Honeydew’s hand when it’s proffered down to hoist him the last of the way up.

 

_Crack!_

 

Like so many fingers he’s splintered, but there’s no instinct to stave this off, no time to think. Only the percussive explosion as lightning rips through a nearby tree and sends its trunk to vicious shards, its green charred wood flying out at perverse velocity in every direction, directly for him, a bulls eye mark through his lungs, skewering him, sticking him like a meek moth to the pinboard of the mossy embankment.

 

He coughs once and the scarlet spray through his lips is promptly cleaned by the pounding rain. He coughs a second time for the same result, as if it never happened at all.

 

He’s still holding Honeydew’s hand.

 

He wants to cough a third time, just to prove it, but he doesn’t get the chance.

 

_Agony, bone, vein, pulse, new again again again..._

 

He sidles up beside Honeydew, dry and new in the mouth of the cave.

 

When Honeydew doesn’t respond, Xephos takes the initiative, carefully clambers his way around his friend, reaches down. He never means to but always does, and catches sight of his own slack face, the dribbles of blood at the corners of his mouth pelted clean by the rain. Swiftly, he turns his attention to the task of his hand.

 

Carefully, he plucks away the fingers of his corpse until only his living own are entwined in his friend’s.

 

“You should let go,” he says.

 

But the rain suffocates the sound of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would love to hear feedback, this is the first ive written in a like three month dry spell, so any comments will literally sustain my whole life


End file.
